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Show 7 7 ?f£frx In front of her roominghouse, I began to take detours from the direct three-block ride, and I must have driven a hundred miles that summer out on country roads, passionate to be safe. Stopped, kissing her, feeling her, I would be wondering if this spot was too close to town, if a car might happen by at the crucial moment, if the sheriff had followed us, if that farmhouse only a mile away would erupt with curious farmers, if my father was out driving for some reason along this road. I was spending my haying earnings like a sailor on gas at 18c a gallon. And all the time, probably, I could have parked in front of her roominghouse in the shadows of the trees with perfect privacy and she would have submitted just to get the waiting over with. I found the perfect place about a mile east of town, off the graveled road and on a one-track dirt road which followed along the bank of the Ekert Canal, the road used by the Hitch company rider but never at night, no farm houses close, I didn't see how I could be more private in a rowboat in the middle of the Pacific. Only God could have seen us and he would have to look plenty close. So I picked her up and without a word headed east. 1 turned off the graveled highway to the gate, stopped, doused the lights, got out, opened the gate, got back in, drove through, got out, closed the gate, got back in and drove on, all without a word spoken by either of us. It was so unromantic that I began to sweat, but I was safe, lights off and no moon, and I drove along the canal bank to get around the ^e«, creeping along in the dark, when all at once the car began to handle strangely, the steering flopping around. A flat? A flat.' Oh god* I stopped and began to shake the steering wheel, groaning to keep from crying. "What's wrong?" she asked, alarmed. "This damned road.' Oh god."' "What's wrong.1" I began to beat the steering wheel. "God damn it, oh just god damn it.'" I could swear freely with a girl like Avis. |